Student-Run Classes Are UC’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’

Re “Students Fear Effects of Sex Class Scandal at Berkeley,” Feb. 21: The furor over the sex classes at UC Berkeley reveals the dirty little secret of the UC system. It doesn’t do a very good job of undergraduate education. The prestigious reputation of the UC is based on research programs, graduate schools and professional schools. Undergraduates, on the other hand, make do with lecture classes of over 100 students, seminars taught by graduate students and, apparently, classes (for credit, no less) taught by each other.

As the father of a college student and a high school senior, I have spent some time over the past few years researching California’s public and private colleges and universities. My daughter attends Cal State Long Beach. They keep her so busy there with required classes and participation in the university choir and the music department that she would not have time to take a sex class even if one were offered. The CSU system emphasizes undergraduate education as a first priority of professors.

I would advise any parent involved in helping a son or daughter choose a college to do some research. Visit the school’s Web site, get a catalog and take a campus tour. Don’t choose a school based just on its reputation. Your dream school could turn into a nightmare.

John G. Roberts

Arcadia

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Sex can be a lot of fun, one-on-one or in groups. Sex is also a valid field of study because it is something that affects many people’s personal and social lives. It seems that some administrators at UC Berkeley feel that sex is invalid both for study and for pleasure, considering that they suspended a course after finding out that some of the students actually elected to enjoy sex together and that some students chose to study stripping.

Last year I spent a semester studying sexuality, gender and identity in a specialized program set in Amsterdam. As part of that program, I went to a peep show, saw a sex show and visited a sex museum. I learned about migrant prostitutes, Dutch culture, transsexual issues and much more.

Since sex and sexuality affect so many of our lives in such deep ways, we have to be open to studying them. If some of us elect to participate in fun sexual activities in conjunction with or separate from our course work, nobody should have the right to stop us or to say that that makes the study of sex and sexuality invalid.

Nicholas Sakurai

Champaign, Ill.

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This is an outrage. If the repressive UC Berkeley officials can suspend a class on male sexuality and its field trip to a gay strip club, what’s next? Will they no longer offer courses in “The Joy of Garbage” or professional wrestling? What’s to become of upper-level Grateful Dead classes? If this dangerous trend continues, it’s entirely possible that students will be forced to study math, science or business while they’re in college.

Don Garrison

Los Angeles